Brian Meece CD

Brian Meece was busted for surfing too close to the pier at Jacksonville Beach as news cameras rolled and his friends got away.Strike one ...He also ran through a complete cycle, from obscurity to fame and back, after releasing his own movie -- or, as Meece himself puts it, "from hero to zero in just six weeks."Strike two ...But then came his debut album, Brian Meece, a self-produced collection of original songs, with lyrics wistful and elusive, melodies that stretch and play, and a voice that seems born to tell stories in song.Home run.Brian Meece is more than just an album. It's a snapshot of a young artist whose travels left him neither bitter nor defeated. Instead, these performances -- gently humorous, reflective, intimate, jazz-inflected but flavored as well by hints of grunge and even hip-hop -- suggest that Meece has learned the ways of the world without too much damage but with more than a little insight gained along the way.Beyond that, Brian Meece is about chasing adventures, from small-town Germany to a seat behind a sound board on an Alaskan cruise, then coming back home.The thread begins on the Mississippi Gulf coast, where Brian was born. He knew his father, his grandfather, and even his great-grandfather, all of whom were singers rooted in country gospel. With presentiments of O Brother planted in his head, he was suddenly transported in third grade to Germany, where his father had been hired to do computer work."Going to Europe definitely influenced me," Brian admits. "Bands like Mr. Mister were all over the radio -- very slick, but fun and melodic. I had just seen Back to the Future, so of course I got a skateboard and a guitar, and right away I started to play."He returned with his family to the States and began high school in Pensacola. By this time Brian had discovered the Ramones, Nirvana, the Violent Femmes ... as well as Donovan, Nick Drake, and Elliot Smith. "All of those guys did music that was simple, direct, and from the heart," he explains.For a while he tried to put these influences into play with a series of punk bands -- an experiment that didn't quite work out. "No matter how hard I tried, I didn't sound anything like the guys I loved," he laughs. "I'd walk away from each audition, shaking my head, and pop in my Lemonheads record on the way home."Looking for other avenues into music, Brian enrolled at the Recording Workshop, a recording technology school in Chillicothe, Ohio. The subject suited him. "I had access to recording studios whenever I wanted," he says. "I was obsessed with learning everything about recording. It was like a dream come true."After recording school, Brian picked up a gig doing sound work on a Carnival Cruise Lines ship bound for Alaska. Back in the Lower 48, he spent some time driving across America, filling his journal with sketches that would grow into songs. For a while he moved back in with his family, then won admission to the University of North Florida, his school of choice "mainly because the surf was better in Jacksonville than in Pensacola. There's a pier right there at Jacksonville Beach, where the surf is really good. It's illegal to surf there because we'd scare the fish away from the fishermen, but everyone ignored that until the Marine Patrol decided to make a point by arresting one of the surfers."Guess who got busted. "There was a huge media blitz as they took me to jail," Brian remembers. "They handcuffed me and confiscated my surfboard. I ended up missing a couple of exams, failing a couple of classes, and dropping out."Good thing, too. Forced to fend for himself, Brian started a yard business, Two Guys That Mow, with his brother. "We made good money, because with the humidity in Florida, lawns were always growing," Brian says. "But more important to me, this was my first experience as an entrepreneur. Right away, I really liked the idea of rowing my own boat."Inspired by the kick of being his own boss, Brian, with his friend Michael Twigg, launched a